Teen cancer awareness advocate launches in-flight campaign to raise awareness

Local teen launches in-flight campaign to raise cancer awareness

Soneesh Kothagundla is national director of the American Lung Cancer Initiative, a student-led program to raise awareness around the disease. He’s persuading airline crews to let him urge people to get screened by making in-flight announcements.

We’re nearing the end of lung-cancer awareness month.

Soneesh Kothagundla is national director of the American Lung Cancer Initiative, a student-led program to raise awareness around the disease.

What we know:

He’s persuading airline crews to let him urge people to get screened by making in-flight announcements.

He has launched a campaign called the Flight PSA movement on social media to get other young people to help in the fight against cancer.

What they're saying:

"I heard that ‘ding,’" Kothagundla said. "I got out of my seat and went off the airplane and asked the attendant if I could give a flight announcement."

Kothagundla, a senior at South Forsyth High School, is a member of HOSA Future Health Professionals, another student-led group that encourages young people to become leaders in health industries. "I was just learning about advocacy, volunteering and nonprofits," Kothagundla said.

Last year, Kothagundla joined the American Lung Cancer Screening Initiative.

"I started hanging up flyers in grocery stores just after school," he said.

Kothagundla, also an intern at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, went to the National Lung Cancer Roundtable last December. 

"I met two lung-cancer survivors. They really showed me how it feels to live with lung cancer," Kothagundla said.

He wanted to do something bigger to draw more attention to the need for cancer screening. "I made a video about telling people to hang up flyers about lung cancer awareness," Kothagundla said.

The backstory:

Earlier this year, he posted the video on social media. "That video hit 7,000 views on Instagram," Kothagundla said.

Days later ,a friend texted him. 

"He was like ‘hey, my mom has a history of smoking, and she’s getting a screening at the end of this week because of your video," Kothagundla said.

So far, he has made four more in-flight announcements. 

"How can I create the biggest change possible? How can I leave the biggest impact on the world?" he asked.

The message is taking off with other passengers.

"It’s a really good idea," said Avyay Gupta, a 14-year-old air traveler who flew into Atlanta with his parents. "If you raise awareness, then it’s also good for other people to raise it with you."

Ron Johnson, a traveler who flew in from Texas called Kothagundla "a young person who really cares about the needs of others and would like to share the love."

What's next:

Kothagundla is encouraging other students to use their voices to drive change. And he doesn’t want to be just any doctor. He hopes to become surgeon general one day.